Rule of thumb · DIYNº 91 / 96

Egg cooking time scales with mass to the two-thirds power, not linearly

A jumbo egg doesn’t need proportionally more time than a medium one to reach the same doneness — heat has to penetrate through the whole egg, and that penetration time scales with mass^(2/3), not mass itself.

Why it works

This comes directly from heat-diffusion physics: doubling an egg’s mass doesn’t double the distance heat has to travel to the centre, so cooking time grows slower than mass does — a genuinely counter-intuitive result most kitchen advice ignores entirely.

Do it exactly

Estimate with the rule, then check it against the calculator that models it properly.

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